Trillium maculatum Raf.

 

Trillium maculatum, the spotted wakerobin or spotted trillium, is a species of flowering plant in the family Melanthiaceae. It is a member of the Trillium cuneatum complex, a closely related group of sessile-flowered trilliums. The species is endemic to the southeastern United States, ranging across Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and northern Florida.

Description

Trillium maculatum is a perennial, herbaceous, flowering plant that persists by means of an underground rhizome. Like all trilliums, it has a whorl of three bracts (leaves) and a single trimerous flower with three sepals, three petals, two whorls of three stamens each, and three carpels (fused into a single ovary with three stigmas). It has a sessile flower (no flower stalk), erect petals, and mottled leaves. Its flower petals are deep red or reddish-purple but occasionally yellow.

Taxonomy

Trillium maculatum was first described by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1830. The specific epithet maculatum means "spotted", a reference to the conspicuously marked leaves of some forms of this species. Although Rafinesque described a species with spotted stems, later authors have not confirmed that character.[citation needed]

Trillium maculatum is a member of the Trillium cuneatum complex, a group of eight taxa including Trillium luteum and Trillium cuneatum (in the strict sense). All members of the complex are sessile-flowered trilliums (Trillium subgen. Sessilia).

Distribution and habitat

Trillium maculatum is endemic to the southeastern United States, ranging across South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and northern Florida.

Trillium maculatum - Wikipedia

Spotted Trillium (usda.gov)